Complex molecules that could be key building blocks of life, the daily rise and fall of temperature, and an assessment of the surface properties and internal structure of the comet are just some of the highlights of the first scientific analysis of the data returned by Rosetta’s lander Philae last November.

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will be heading for space a third time, as part of Expeditions 52 and 53 to the International Space Station. He will be launched on a Soyuz vehicle in May 2017 on a five-month mission.

Musicians, composers and audio buffs are invited to help celebrate 40 years of ESA’s tracking station network. Create some truly cosmic sound and you may win impressive prizes, including a trip to our anniversary gala event in Spain.

Thanks to a new system developed by scientists in the UK, taking to the waves for a spot of surfing can benefit research into the health of coastal waters, and could help confirm satellite measurements of sea-surface temperature.

]]>9d9202ca2f4b091ce1554753fbd284e0Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:38:00 +0200Space Kombucha in the search for life and its origin

You might know it as a drink for hipsters or as an ancient brew drunk for centuries in Eurasia, but the culture that ferments sugary tea into Kombucha is going around the world. Bolted to the outside of the International Space Station are the same bacteria and yeasts that are used in making Kombucha.

From agricultural monitoring to charting changing lands, early images from Europe’s new Sentinel-2A satellite show how the ‘colour vision’ mission’s critical observations can be used to keep us and our planet safe.

On 26 July at 09:30 GMT (11:30 CEST), ESA handed control of Europe’s last Meteosat Second Generation weather satellite, MSG-4, to EUMETSAT.

]]>1bfb5759fd18d86c1e0bb57cda7bbcf3Mon, 27 Jul 2015 11:30:00 +0200Andreas Mogensen launch moved by a day

The next ESA astronaut to work on the International Space Station, Andreas Mogensen, will arrive a day later than previously planned because the Station’s orbit has been changed.

The Danish flight engineer, commander Sergei Volkov and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov will leave Earth from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, at 4:34 GMT (6:34 CEST, 10:34 local time) on 2 September and arrive at the Space Station just six hours later.

Andreas and Aidyn’s stay will be short – they will be back on terra firma just 10 days later. They will leave Sergei on the Station and return to Earth in a different Soyuz under commander Gennady Padalka, who is already in space.

Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice increased by a third following the unusually cool summer of 2013. This new finding suggests that ice in the northern hemisphere is more sensitive to changes in summer melting than it is to winter cooling.

The last weather satellite in Europe’s highly successful Meteosat Second Generation series lifted off on an Ariane 5 launcher at 21:42 GMT (23:42 CEST) on 15 July from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.